“Did you hear me?” Rubic asks as he flips his own omelet closed and covers it with cheese.
“Huh? Sorry. When I’m eating bacon that’s pretty much all I can do.” Allan lies then takes another bite.
“Laura like, likes you.”
“Gross, Rube. She’s just a friend.” Allan stares at Rubic with a stone-solid glare. “Really, a friend.”
Rubic sits and eats. “All right, not another word about it.”
Allan crams a huge bite of omelet into his mouth. With his cheeks packed, Allan notices his uncle’s suit and tie. “Starting the new job today?”
Rubic adjusts the bright blue tie. “Yup, you like?”
Allan nods.
“I’m, like, responsible now. Got a 401K, whatever that means, and health care.”
“Nice. Good luck.” Allan folds the last bite of omelet in his mouth. “You can tell it’s a clip-on, by the way.”
“You can?” Rubic plays with the collar. “Oh, well, it’ll have to do.”
Allan cleans his plate and rolls away. “Taking a shower.”
“Mrs. Domley is going to drop off her car and drive you to school in the van. I’d take you kids, but my day starts a bit earlier than what we’re used to.” Rubic laughs. “See, I’ve totally made the conversion to responsible adult.”
“Uh-huh. I know the truth. My dad told me that you always missed the bus or made him late ’cause you couldn’t get outta bed. Sometimes, you didn’t even go,” Allan replies, halfway across the living room.
“Don’t be like me.” Rubic retorts. “I have emerged from my chrysalis.”
“Your tie is crooked.” Allan calls out over his shoulder and laughs.
Rubic inspects his tie. It was crooked. “Yeah, got it. Thanks.”
Allan transfers to the seat in the shower—a task he insists on doing himself. The bathtub is tailored for him: equipped with handrails, soap dispensers, and a wide enough tub that the washing chair mounted in the basin can swivel around one hundred eighty degrees.
Afterward, he exits, dries himself, and brushes his teeth. He stares into the foggy mirror, noticing the bags under his eyes. They were dark and made his face look sullen and sad. Maybe he was sad, sad that Laura probably didn’t believe him, sad that he didn’t have anyone to talk to about it except a paid therapist.
The front door slams as Rubic heads out to start his new job.
A black beetle skitters across the countertop. Allan’s heart jumps, and pounds. He pushes away from the counter. The beetle stops and checks out the edge of the porcelain, its antenna dancing, testing, feeling the air.
Allan closes his eyes. “Stupid beetle.” He doesn’t think he should still be nervous around beetles. Jibbawk had reentered its flesh-and-blood body before it was exiled to Plethiomia. The biting, snapping, creepy beetles are no more.
Allan gets dressed. He struggles with his pants, but eventually succeeds.
Allan rolls out the front door and locks it. His ride isn’t here yet.
The sun is warm, and he closes his eyes, letting it bathe his face. It won’t last long. The summer is coming to an end, and the experts predict a cold winter. Winter is hard for Allan. The cold makes him feel stiff and achy.
He looks at the old oak tree. “I’m not waiting for you, Asantia. I’m coming back. I’m gonna bring Laura with me. That’s the only way for her to really believe me.”
A little yellow MINI Cooper turns onto Allan’s Street and parks at the curb. Mrs. Domley steps out. She is an exact replica of Laura, only much older. They both have blond hair, bright blue eyes, and lean figures.
“Morning, Allan,” Mrs. Domley says. She has on her running outfit. “Tell your uncle that I don’t mind driving you to school in your van. I don’t have anywhere to be until ten.”
“Okay, thank you.” Allan hands the van keys to Mrs. Domley.
“Hi,” Laura says. She pulls herself out of the car seat like she is weighed down with a bag of bricks. Normally she’d bounce out. Today she has on a pair of dark gray slacks and a pink button-up shirt that is slightly crooked. There is something wrong with her today. This is bad.
“Hi, Laura. How are you?” He watches her closely.
“I’m good. They’re picking the lead for Macbeth today, and I’ve got student council. So it’s gonna be busy. Not a lot of time for… anything.” Laura takes the handles of Allan’s chair, pushes him to the side of the van, and presses a button on the door handle. The door slides open, and a platform emerges and lowers. She helps Allan onto the platform without saying a word.
“You’re gonna get the part. You’re the best actor in the whole school,” Allan says, having a hard time taking his eyes off her. He looks at Mrs. Domley to make sure she didn’t see him staring at Laura. She didn’t.
Mrs. Domley hops in and fires up the van’s loud engine. “How long until you get your permit, young man?” she said with a smile. “You’ll be driving yourself to school soon.”
“I’m fifteen and a half, so in six months I can get my permit.” Allan looks at Laura, knowing he only has a few months until she starts driving.
“That’ll go by quicker than you think.” Mrs. Domley backs the van out of the driveway and speeds away.
The van is larger and customized to carry around his wheelchair, and when he starts driving, he’ll be able to drive it with his hands.
Laura sits next to Allan in the back of the van as Mrs. Domley drives to Mac’s house.
The van stops, and Mac hops in the back seat. Mac is another friend that is on the swim team.
“No one is going to sit up here with me?” Mrs. Domley jokes. “Fine, but I’ll be lonely.”
Allan fist bumps Mac. He’s shorter than most, with light-brown skin and very short black hair. “Hey, bro. You ready for Manis’s math test?”
“No, but I never will be,” Allan replies. “She’s like a brutal nun, but without the ruler. I hate her class.”
“Even without the ruler, she’s not legally allowed to hit you. It’s called corporal punishment,” Laura says. “If we were living in the eighteen hundreds, you’d be beaten daily.” She jokes, but doesn’t look at Allan directly.
“I’d have to run away to Peru or something. I’m just not good at math.”
The van pulls away from the curb. Mrs. Domley turns on the news radio as Allan, Mac, and Laura discuss Macbeth and the next swim meet.
Allan eyes Mrs. Domley as she drives. She keeps looking at him in the rearview. Why? Allan notices Laura is looking around nervously. She’s bothered. Allan stares at her beautiful eyes. He imagines them made of diamonds, blue only because they’ve captured a piece of the morning sky.
Laura notices Allan staring and tries to smile. A strand of hair falls over her face, and she tucks it behind her ear. Allan snaps back into his body and glances at the front. Mrs. Domley is staring at Allan, worry discoloring her expression.
The van pulls into the school parking lot and stops at the front entrance. The quiet weirdness between everyone is palpable, like magnets flipped the wrong way.
Laura helps Allan out of the van.
“Laura, I need to speak with you. Let Allan and Mac head on in.”
Laura whispers a good-bye to Allan and hops back into the van.
“Come on, bro,” Mac says.
“She’s mad at me. This is bad.”
“I’d say you messed up, big time.”
Allan rolls himself into the school and turns the corner, stopping by the metal lockers. “I’m gonna wait here for Laura.”
“Coo.” Mac walks off, striking a conversation with another friend.
Allan notices a girl laughing and pointing at him. It doesn’t take long for Allan to realize that the entire school seems to be watching him.
The first bell rings, and Allan still doesn’t budge. Where is Laura?
The assistant principal saunters over to Allan and folds his arms. The man is tall and muscular with a square jaw and thick brows that shadow his narrow eyes.
He always wears a green polo with the school logo on the left chest tucked tightly into his tan khaki pants. A whistle he uses when he’s teaching gym class dangles on a string hung around his muscular neck. “There a problem, Mr. Westerfield?” He asks then cleans his teeth by sucking on them loudly. “I noticed a lot of folks giving you undue attention this morning.”
Allan shakes his head. “I don’t know why.” He shifts in his seat and feels his stomach flop around.
“Then get a move on. Class waits for no man.” The assistant principal walks off, shooing other straggling students.
Allan catches the stares and hears snickers while he wheels himself through the halls to his locker. Written in black marker is a message that reads, “Crazy in the”. A picture of a coconut is taped below the message. Allan panics and rips the image down and tries to rub off the marker, but the marker won’t come off. What’s going on? He feels clammy and tense. He can’t think or look anyone in the eye, but he feels their stares on the back of his head like a hot iron.
The halls clear out. Allan is alone, and he can breathe now.
Allan’s chest tightens again when Laura walks around the corner. Laura is cleaning her nails repetitively. Her eyes are red.
“Sorry, Allan.” Laura looks out to the grassy area then back to Allan. She sniffs and represses her tears. “I can’t go hiking with you in the mountain this weekend. I can’t go looking for the Hubbu flower, or whatever it is.”
Allan’s eyes widen. “What? Why?”
Laura nods. “I… I told my mother what you said two days ago. She thinks you have serious problems. I’m worried about you too. You tell me about going to another planet and that all this time we’ve been hiking together, we’re really looking for a weird flower that will get you there.” Laura folds her arms tightly. “I thought I believed you, but I don’t. What you’re saying is impossible.”
A schoolmate blows past them, hurrying to class. Laura straightens her posture.
“I’m not crazy.” Allan holds up the image of the coconut. “Who else did you tell?”
She takes the image then glances at the writing on the locker. “Oh no,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell anyone at school.”
“But the whole school knows! I trusted you.”
“After you told me, I got worried. You went to the bathroom, and I saw your diary by your nightstand. I picked it up and flipped through it. The stuff I saw made me worry more about you, so I took it.”
“What!!” The world closes in on Allan, making him feel like he’s in a dark tunnel.
“You really do believe you were on some other planet called Lan Darr. The creatures you met were so weird, and they spoke English. It’s not right. I wanted to give your diary to your therapist so she could help you see… to see that it was all a dream made up in your head. Lan Darr isn’t real! The flower isn’t real! Time to wake up, Allan.”
Allan grips the armrests on his wheelchair until his knuckles ache. “Oh my God, you stole and read my diary.” His head lowers and shakes slowly back and forth.
Embarrassment seizes every nerve. His therapist told him to write down all his thoughts and feelings and that doing so would help him make sense of himself and help him heal. He never expected anyone to read it, ever! He’d written about his attraction to Asantia, in detail. He’d written about how strong he’d felt with Mizzi’s mechanical legs and how often he’d thought about the Lorebs, the balloon creatures that carried him to Dantia. Everything is in there! Now Laura has read it and is freaked out by it. She must think I’m a loser. Allan has never felt betrayed before.
“I didn’t come over yesterday because… because I was looking for the diary. I lost it.”
Allan’s eyes close. It keeps getting worse. The reason for the graffiti on his locker and the strange looks is because his diary was found and has made headlines. “How did it get lost? Who has it?”
“I don’t know who has it. I was in the copy room making flyers. My bag tipped over on the chair. Your diary must have fallen out. I went back later and looked everywhere for it, but it was gone. Someone found it. I’m sorry.” She can no longer hold her composure and tears burst out of her eyes. She runs to the office, her hands cradling her face.
Anger competes with sadness in Allan’s mind like dueling samurai. Quivers echo through his muscles, leaving him weak and feeling small.
Someone found his diary and passed it around the whole school and probably posted it online. “No!” he screams. His voice echoes off the lockers. The past year of his life is on display, and it makes him look bonkers. It’s bad enough that the unfortunate events in his life—the car crash, his supposed abduction, and then rescue at the dam—make him famous in the sense that everyone has seen his story on the news and can pick him out of a crowd. Now those same people, the ones that felt pity for him or that wouldn’t look him in the eye, are all laughing at him. Allan feels ruined, a corpse on a battlefield, a plane in a nosedive. His hands are cold and stiff.
At lunch, Allan goes to the nurse. He feels like he’s going to vomit, and the feeling remains with him until Rubic comes and picks him up.
Rubic rolls Allan out of the nurse’s office as fast as he can. “We gotta hustle. I only have an hour for lunch, and it took me twenty minutes to get here.”
“I’m sorry you had to come get me.”
“Don’t worry, man. It’s all good. I just have ta burn rubber.”
Allan doesn’t say a word the entire ride home. He’s afraid he’ll start to cry.
Rubic drops him off and heads back to work.
Allan doesn’t play any video games or eat. He tries to watch television, but hardly pays attention. All he is successful at is getting into pajamas and flipping through TV channels. Rubic works late, so Allan doesn’t talk to another living soul the rest of the day and evening. He goes to bed early without brushing his teeth or reading.
In the morning, Rubic wakes him when his alarm fails to do so. “Hey. You’ll be late for school.”
“I’m sick.”
“Ah, I’m sorry. Let me get the thermometer.”
“Not that kind of sick.”
“What do you mean? You were gonna blow chunks yesterday.”
Allan sits up. “Laura stole my diary and told her mom about Lan Darr. They think I’m nuts, and Laura doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore. And I don’t want to hang out with her.” The anger ruminates in Allan and is poised to burst out of him. “She lost the diary, Rube. Lost it. Someone at school found it. My life is over!” Allan falls back and pulls the covers over his head.
“Ah. I was wondering why our house looks like a winter wonderland. I thought it might have been a good thing. You know, a sign of affection. We used to prank people with toilet paper if we liked the guy, or girl.”
Allan peeks from under the covers. “What are you talking about?”
Rubic thumbs toward the window.
Allan lets Rubic help him into his chair. After flipping the brake off, he rolls to the window and then yanks the cord to the blinds. They clatter to the top of the window, sending dust into the air like smoke. A toilet paper horror scene lies just outside his window. The tall oak tree is completely crowned with dangling streamers of toilet paper, and the grass is littered with coconut shells.
Allan spins his chair and speeds out of the room. Rubic follows. “Still might not be a totally bad thing. In my day, if you really hated someone you’d egg ’em or put a bag of crap on their porch and light it on fire. Don’t do that, by the way.”
Allan rolls out the front door and stops. He’s never seen so much toilet paper, not even in the movies. Whoever did this took extra care to completely cover the yard. It really did look more like snow in some places than toilet paper. Then Allan sees the van. “This is not a sign of affection,” Allan steams, and rolls to the van. Pages of a book are taped to the windows with lots of thick, clear packing tape.
Rubic starts pulling off the tape and the pages.
“
Hand them here,” Allan orders. He inspects them, expecting them to be his diary. They weren’t. They are pages from a children’s book by Adam Boldary titled Morty’s Travels. Someone had written a note on the cover page in a red marker. It reads:
Do these pages look familiar? You didn’t travel to another world, you’re remembering this book. Look through it. The dream spirits are in there and the salamander-people. The Lithic Furies are on page 10, and Dantia’s canal system is on page 8. Sorry, Allan, but you’re just crazy in the head. Get some help, dude.
With Love and pseudo-affection,
The Entire School Population of Minister Academy
Allan tears through the pages of the Adam Boldary book. Sure enough, there are the creatures he’d met and places he’d been: the six-inch creatures, the Lorebs, Dantia’s tall wall, the canals, the Lithic Furies, and even Lyllia of Meduna. They don’t quite look like how he’d seen them because they were illustrations in a children’s book. But there they are, in a book published in 1975.
Chapter 4
You’re Just Bat Crazy, Boy
Allan crumples up the pages of Morty’s Travels and throws the paper ball so hard he rocks his wheelchair. He’s confused to the point of madness. Why were these creatures in a children’s book? Had this book been read to him as a boy? Tears blur the world around him, trapping his sadness in their watery clutches. He grips the push-ring on his wheelchair until his muscles ache. Turning the left ring spins him back toward the house.
“Those Minister Academy preps think they’re so clever, don’t they? If I find out who did this to you, well, we’ll get ’em back. They’ll be sorry,” Rubic says. “I don’t care if that’s not the adult thing to say.” Rubic tries to reach out to Allan, to touch his shoulder, but Allan keeps rolling.
Allan takes one last look at the gently swaying streamers of toilet paper that decorate his entire front yard. It hurts him physically to look at it, so he rushes inside as fast as he can.
Rubic follows, closing and locking the front door. “Look. The prank on our house could be worse. They could’ve thrown rocks through the windows or keyed your van.” Rubic wasn’t getting through to Allan. “I know you thought you really went somewhere. I know you hold on to that with every ounce of strength. You dream about that place. Those friends you made, they feel real to you, as real as anything in this house.” Rubic knocks on the wall. “But that shows you how powerful our brains are. You were drugged with an intense cocktail of chemicals, bud. I experienced a slice of that poison that Alice had flushed into the river. I know.”
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